As the IYI party’s confusion in the ranks shows, and the opposition’s both cautious and contradictory approach to the event makes it evident, the opposition is trying to send a message to the US, showing they are not opposing the efforts to breach the Montreux treaty for the benefit of the US. The communication is that the AKP government has now lost its appeal, and a new government with the US’s blessing should be formed with today’s opposition in charge. In short, they are begging the US to see them as the successor to a worn-out government.
The latest events say a lot about NATO member Turkey’s independence and sovereignty. But that issue, once the major topic of the country, is not for discussion anymore. The US-supported army coups in Turkey wiped that discussion off the table, which was the left’s favorite issue.
A toothless letter from some retired admirals was what Erdoğan’s weakened government needed to jump on and immediately assume victimhood.
Reminding of the older days when the Kemalist army had brought down governments, AKP started screaming foul when some retired admirals replied to a high government spokesperson’s claim that Erdoğan unilaterally could pull out of the international Montreux Treaty. This treaty involves permissions on which warships could pass through the straits to enter the Black Sea.
For the Kemalist Turkish army, the national treaties signed during and near modern Turkey’s establishment are anathema. Or, better, it used to be an abomination for the previously Kemalist army even to discuss changing them. That is why the response only came from the retired old admirals, remnants of the Kemalist times, who are well versed in naval passage rules through two straits in Turkey. However, Erdoğan, fearing they may intervene in his hideous plan to convert secular Turkey to Islamic fascism, eliminated and retired the Kemalists from the military with dubious accusations and various tricks.
In the last few days, after the admirals’ letter, Turkey went into a tailspin of events, accusations, heightened security measures, threats, detentions, arrest warrants, and victimhood tears and moaning of the government. Crying wolf, the government accused the admirals of a coup preparation and immediately started attacking.
Erdoğan is trying to please both the US and his close business partner Qatar with one stone, change the daily coverage of his economic disaster and implement dictatorial courses with another stone.
All the while pretending to defend his rule from a vicious, armed, anti-democratic elderly retired admirals’ violence.
None of it is true, of course.
Nobody in the government is even attempting to answer a very basic question: Do these retired old geezers even have any troops, guns, power, relationships, interests, or means to get out of their retirement communities and get to the city center to implement a coup?
But this is Turkey under Erdoğan, and people have given up on trying to ask logical questions that make sense anymore.
In their public letter, the admirals were only stating that building a parallel canal to the current Istanbul Bosphorus is a way to circumvent the Montreux Treaty. This may be disastrous for Turkey, as history has shown.
Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of Turkey, was pulled into the First World War when two German warships were given safe refuge, and these ships, passing through the straits in question today, shelled the Russians after they passed to the Black Sea.
Montreux Treaty prevents any warship from passing freely from the straits controlled by Turkey. Of course, this causes a huge problem for the US when there are Russian ports, coastlines, navies, and cities around the Black Sea with no direct and free access to the US navy.
The admirals are well aware of how close Erdoğan is to the US and how he is trying to look favorable to obtain a higher reliability degree in the ranks. The entire Canal Istanbul project and the intention to pull out of the Montreux international treaty is only intended as a gift to the US to free their warships entering the Black Sea.
Things moved very fast after the retired admirals published their letter. In fact, things moved at the speed of light, considering how slow things move in Turkey.
The police immediately raided the homes and detained those ex-admirals who signed the letter. Everyone is still waiting to hear what they will be charged with. Other older retired admirals whose names are in the letter were sent notices to appear at the prosecutor’s office for questioning because they were too old to be taken into detention.
The government coalition Nazi party MHP’s leader Bahçeli called authorities to severely punish the old criminal admirals for advocating the military’s involvement in politics. However, soon, documents surfaced from 2004 when Bahçeli himself had written to more than 300 active top military officials, urging them to rise up against the government. But that was when he was in the opposition to ruling AKP.
The government started a process to kick the retired admirals out of their government-provided homes if they enjoyed that benefit. The letter-writing admirals had not even been charged, prosecuted, or found guilty yet. It was only the second day after they wrote a letter expressing their concerns about the management of the waterways.
The Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, whose photographs show him sitting beside the knee of Fethullah Gülen, a wanted criminal terrorist in Turkey, a long-time friend and collaborator of president Erdoğan, said he and his investigators were up all night investigating the backgrounds and families of the signatories. Soylu himself was recruited to the government when he was previously a member of the nazi MHP party.
The pro-government newspaper Hürriyet published the names and addresses of admirals’ families, making them direct targets. Although the paper did not explain how they obtained the ex-admirals’ family information so fast, many believe the information was given to the government mouthpiece by the interior minister himself, who was up all night, “investigating the backgrounds” of the elderly retired admirals.
Soylu announced that some retired admirals’ relatives were members of the opposition CHP party, indicating the opposition party to have a hand in the crime of publishing an open letter.
A top official in the opposition IYI Party, a spin-off from the Nazi MHP party, gave his support to the ex-admirals. However, he was contradicted a few hours later when his IYI party’s president said the letter he praised was silly. Having a NAZI background of rabid nationalism and political murders may be the reason why the IYI party president stood with the State. Turkish nationalists and fascists look at the Turkish state and its close relationship with the US as an object of worship. The IYI party president Meral Akşener was the Turkish interior minister when 17,500 people disappeared and have not been found yet. Most of those who disappeared were Kurdish, an ethnic minority in Turkey who the Nazis, fascists, and nationalists hate and are waging war against.
Another interesting and contradictory news that emerged was the alleged testimonies of the admirals under detention. They said they only signed the letter but did not write it. And they said an official in the IYI party wrote the letter. That should complicate the matter if proven true.
The government showing this much sensitivity to retired, old admirals’ concerns about national waterways does not even answer how, last week, an active, government-loyal admiral attended a prayer session, with his official uniform, organized by a radical religious sect. Turkey, a secular country, does not allow such affiliation of officials and sects, especially those with deep, illegal roots associated with terrorism, child sexual abuse, bribery, and illicit businesses. There was no response from the government if that active admiral hobnobbing with fundamentalist, radical Islamic sect was under investigation as of yesterday.
Silently, last week, Erdoğan signed an executive order allowing people with religious affiliations to fundementalist sects to become army officers, something not permitted before.
The positions of the letter-writing ex-admirals should not be romanticized. Although some are secular Kemalists, others have served without any criticism under the current regime. When other Kemalists were being cleansed from the military ranks, they served silently and showed their loyalty to AKP and the regime change underway. However, brazen attempts to publicly and embarrassingly hand the family jewels of Montreux Treaty over to the US in a silver platter may have gone too far for them.
As the IYI party’s confusion in the ranks shows, and the opposition’s both cautious and contradictory approach to the event makes it evident, the opposition is trying to send a message to the US, showing they are not opposing the efforts to breach the Montreux treaty for the benefit of the US. The communication is that the AKP government has now lost its appeal, and a new government with the US’s blessing should be formed with today’s opposition in charge. In short, they are begging the US to see them as the successor to a worn-out government.
The latest events say a lot about NATO member Turkey’s independence and sovereignty. But that issue, once the major topic of the country, is not for discussion anymore. The US-supported army coups in Turkey wiped that discussion off the table, which was the left’s favorite issue.
Mehmet Bayram – Sendika.org